COURT DATE!

Gladney called yesterday with our court date...it's June 15th!...this is the day the Ethiopian courts will hear our case for the first time in order for Judah to become legally ours. Please pray that we will "pass court" the first time on the 15th. Sometimes court dates are postponed or rescheduled, due to paperwork mishaps or their schedules changing. Now that we only have to go to Ethiopia once, Jeff and I do not have to be there for our court date. Our Power of Attorney from our agency will go to court for us that day. If we pass court on the 15th, we will travel to bring him home sometime in July! Someone pinch me! I cannot believe this is happening!

And more good news...we received an update on Judah last week. He is growing like crazy and just as healthy (and adorable!) as he can be. A huge thank you to our Gladney friends, Lisa and Eryn, who are in Ethiopia now bringing home their little angels. They are visiting the Gladney foster care centers today and loving on Judah! And Lisa is delivering these gifts to our little man. Hope he enjoys the clothes, soft rattles, and  pictures of his family in his little photo book.

Loved this one and wanted him to know that we are hugging him all the way across the globe.

And look who made the family photo album! We wanted Judah to become familiar with this furry face :-)

Our Little Lion

I always knew our boy (yes, I've never had a doubt that this baby would be a boy) would be a big, strong baby--with a head full of hair. So I wasn't surprised when I read what was written on his referral paperwork from Gladney:

"He has a head full of hair that brings a smile immediately to your face...he is very alert for a child his age...

he shows immense strength."

Call it hindsight. I call it intuition. This description is also very fitting for the name we have chosen for him (that we've had picked out for almost a year now). We wanted to choose a name that had Ethiopian significance and was fitting for our little man. And he will be called....

Judah Wells Nix 

"The Lion of Judah" is an ancient symbol that represents the Israelite tribe of Judah throughout the Old Testament of the Hebrew Bible. Traditionally, the tribe is represented by a lion and the symbol dates back to the tribe's patriarch, Jacob, who referred to his son Judah as 'Gur Aryeh,' or 'the young lion.' (Genesis 49:9). Ethiopia's traditions include descent from Israelite's who returned to Ethiopia with the Queen of Sheeba from her visit to King Solomon in Jerusalem, with whom she conceived the founder of the Solomonic dynasty. Christian and Jewish Ethiopian tradition claim that these immigrants were mostly of the tribe of Judah. The "Lion of Judah" symbol can be found on the old Ethiopian flag, currency, and stamps, among other things. And the statue of the Lion of Judah is still standing tall in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital, where our sweet baby is currently residing.

The meaning of Judah is praise, or Let God be Praised. We are truly praising God for his life! Wells is Jeff's middle name, his father's middle name, and his great-grandfather's first name. Can you tell that name significance is a big deal to us?! But I guess I should also mention that we simply like the name :-) His nickname will be Jude. Although lately, I've just been calling him my "Little Lion," with his 'immense strength' and huge mane :-) 

p.s. We just recently revealed his name to friends and family, and he already has some personalized items...they acted quickly!

Yes, that's a picture of him in the adorable frame my mom sent me for Mother's Day. I wish so badly that you could see his entire face, but we have to wait until we "pass court" to post his pictures on our blog.

Can't wait to fill this bag with all of Jude's favorite things...thank you so much Alyssa!

Answered Prayer

Gladney called yesterday to tell us our file was accepted by the Ethiopian courts this week--before the deadline for the change in court policy. This means we will only travel to Ethiopia once! This is a huge blessing for us for many reasons. Although it will slightly delay us from seeing our baby for the first time, it means we won't have to leave him. We will go once and bring him home! Now, we're just waiting on our court date. Thank you to those of you who have been praying for this. Thank you to Gladney, our amazing agency, who worked quickly and efficiently to make this happen. And thank you Lord for answering this prayer!

One week ago...

Who: Natalie, our Gladney case worker, to me

What: The single most important phone call of my life

When: April 27th, 2010, 5:13pm

Where: Driving on Interstate 85/40 in between two 18-wheelers

Why: Introduction to our sweet baby

How: By the Grace of God

We had a feeling the referral would come last week. In fact, the overwhelming anticipation intertwined with immense peace that I began feeling on Sunday, April 25th, is a combination I've never quite experienced before. What I could have never imagined, however, was that Natalie would call me on my evening commute! Last Tuesday, I left one of my schools around 5pm after a long meeting. I was trying to rush home to make it to the shipping store to mail my niece's gift in time to make it for her birthday and also trying to determine if I was going to have time to make it to yoga after that. When my phone rang at 5:13pm and I saw the (817) area code, I think I stopped breathing. This is how the bulk of the conversation went down after the hello/greetings:

Natalie: "I have a referral ready for you!"

Me: "Uh, uh, okay, ah, uh, okay, um, okay, ummmm (truly, this is all I could come up with!) Okay, well I'm on the interstate driving home from work and I'm going to try not to wreck!"

Natalie: "Don't do that; be careful."

Me: "Okay, can I find out where Jeff is and call you back when we get home?"

Natalie: "Sure, just call me back when you get home."

Me: "Okay, well bye-WAIT-can you tell me if it's a boy or girl and how old our baby is?!"

(I almost forgot to ask her!...Jeff and I agreed a long time ago that Natalie could just tell me these two pieces of information before I called him and we both called her back.)

Natalie: "Sure, it's a baby BOY and he's just over 1 month old!"

Me: No idea. Really, I have no idea what I said to her at this point. Complete and utter shock.

After hanging up with Natalie, I immediately called Jeff. Here is what I remember from that conversation (still trying not to wreck):

Jeff: "Hello"

Me: "Baby?" (the tears start to fall)

Jeff: "Yeah?"

Me: "We have a one month-old baby boy." (can't control the waterfall at this point)

Jeff: "Are you serious?!"(I had already made an earlier call to him that very afternoon and he was disappointed when it wasn't "the call.")

Me: "Yes, where are you?!"

Jeff: "Driving, on my way home." I'll be home in about 15 minutes." (We hardly ever drive home at the same time.)

Me: "Me too!" Okay, I'll meet you there to call Natalie back."

Jeff: "Okay, uh, um, okay, are you going to call anybody?"

Me: "I really want to call my mom."

Jeff: "Okay, you call yours and I'll call mine!"

I called my mom after that (still driving) and told her that we have a baby BOY! I don't remember the rest of the conversation with her after that. (Sorry, mom!) When I pulled into my driveway about 15 minutes later, my husband was standing there with the biggest smile on his face. I jumped out to give him a hug; it was wonderful but very brief :-). After rushing inside, I saw that Jeff had somehow--in the five minutes before I arrived--managed to clean off the dining table, set up the laptop, and the camera/video.

There are really no words to describe our emotions for the next several minutes, when we called Natalie back and saw our sweet angel for the first time through emailed photos. Although I must have felt a thousand things all at once (including, "Is this really happening?!"), JOY trumped everything. To see this beautiful, incredibly healthy, baby boy on that computer screen staring back at me was truly unforgettable...and I just couldn't (and still can't) believe that God has blessed us with this gift. Sadness followed as we were told his story of his time before arriving in Gladney's care. We are choosing to keep many of those details private at this point, but all I can say is that God's angels were with him every step of the way.

The remainder of the night was filled with many smiles, laughter, hugs, praises, tears, phone calls to family, texts/emails to friends, and even "bubbly!" Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep that night (or most of the subsequent nights last week!). After dozing off in the wee hours of the morning, I woke up at 5am to the sound of what I thought were his cries. I closed my eyes and asked God to dry his tears. Then, as I imagined his drying, mine began to fall...many tears of gratitude...Thank you, Jesus, for this amazing gift....

Like cold water to a weary soul, is good news from a distant land. -Proverbs 25:25

Referral!!!

We got "the call" yesterday at 5:15pm. God has blessed us with a 6 week-old beautiful baby boy! He is beautiful, healthy, and perfect in every way. More details soon :-)

Operation Nursery, Part 1

When Jeff and I moved to North Carolina, we had big dreams...of a big family...so we bought a big home....that could eventually house a family of 4--plus our beloved dog, Allie. Our home doesn't really look that big from the outside and in fact, some may consider it small. However, it has 3 bedrooms and a bonus room. Four years later, we have each other and our beloved dog, Allie. This disproportion over the years has led to this kind of room....yikes!


Now I'm assuming that those reading this have had some sort of "junk room" in their lives at one point (or else we totally look like slobs right now!). Hoping my assumption is correct, you understand how one of our "extra" rooms ended up this way.

When we began the adoption process, one of the first things we had to complete was our "home study." Included in this series of interviews was a tour/inspection of our home. So we spent hours cleaning up our "junk room" and the result was a little better.


This is how the room has looked for the past year. I must admit that the door stays closed, and we seldom venture in. The wait for Baby E is already difficult enough, and sitting in an empty nursery doesn't make the time pass time any quicker. I've been itching to "set up shop," so to speak, for many many months (okay, years really). And FINALLY, last week, the preparations began! We had so much fun beginning the nursery and were blessed to have Gramma and Pop help us out!

 Paint Room...check!

Assemble Furniture...check!

Select beautiful fabrics....check!

Begin making crib bedding and window treatments...check!

(Yes, Baby E's Gramma is making his/her bedding...sewn with so much love :-)


Completed nursery....to be continued....

And for the record, we still have big dreams....of a big family...our timing was just a little off :-)

Space Mountain

Well, our agency wasn't kidding when they said "expect the unexpected." You see, the process of international adoption is much like a roller coaster ride. For us so far, that roller coaster ride hasn't been so bad in all honesty. Sure, we've experienced a myriad of emotions, and the wait times have varied somewhat...but in keeping with the Disney themes that I sometimes like to reference, I'd say the ride has been a bit like Thunder Mountain...exhilarating, but not scary-- just enough to keep us on our toes. That is, until we received an email last Wednesday. That's when the Thunder catapulted into Space. Yep, we were suddenly an unwilling guest on what felt like Space Mountain...completely in the dark, hitting an unexpected turn at much greater speeds.
As of April 9th, the Ethiopian government is requiring all adoptive parents to travel to Africa twice. This will add about $5,000 to an already expensive travel bill, not to mention cause potential problems for our time off from work.
Prior to this decision, a representative from our adoption agency (our Power of Attorney) was able to represent us on our court date (i.e., the day the Ethiopian government deems our baby legally a Nix). Now, the government is requiring both adoptive parents to be present the day of court. We are told the first trip will last approximately 5 days. During this trip, we will get to meet and spend time with our baby, only to leave him/her to fly home less than 5 days later. (Honestly, I have not brought myself to fully think about this moment when I have to leave my baby behind...I think I am still in denial). The second trip could happen about 3-6 weeks later, at which point our Embassy interview will take place and we will stay in Ethiopia approximately 7 days.
Upon hearing this news, we were initially shocked, then angry, then confused, then sad, then frightened...I think you get the point. However, after several days of thinking and praying, we have an overwhelming peace and are trying to focus on the positive: we will get to see our baby earlier, possibly an entire 2 months earlier than we would have otherwise! It will be so incredible to love on our baby that much sooner, while experiencing more time in Africa--soaking in his/her culture.
And on a broader note, we believe this is happening so Ethiopian adoptions will become more transparent. As a result of greed and corrupt adoption agencies (thankfully, not ours!), we have heard that some families are being referred a baby, only to find a different baby when they arrive in Ethiopia several months later. Also, there are some reports of babies being illegitimately up for adoption. In other words, children who are not truly orphans being "recruited" and taken from their families to be adopted. Thus, several policies are changing in response to safeguard the process--traveling twice being one of them. If these policy changes can save just one child from instances such as this, then I'm all for it.
We ask that you pray for all of the orphans in this country, and that these policies will be implemented with efficacy as well as efficiency. Please pray for our Gladney in-country staff as well as the Ethiopian government. We have utmost confidence in our agency and appreciate their transparency and assistance thus far. We are truly blessed to have such a reputable agency who has the children at their best interest.
As for us, we will be okay. I have a feeling after this ride is over, my reflections will be much like my thoughts each time I've stepped out of my rocket-shaped vehicle at Space Mountain ...a little scary, a thrilling experience, and well worth the wait.